The Challenges of Project Collaboration

Basis for Project Collaboration

Any party that enters into a project collaboration must do so in the belief that: –

• Collaboration between the ‘signatory’ project delivery stakeholders is the most effective strategy for achieving the project objectives.
• Collaborating to achieve the common, agreed project objectives will provide the best opportunity for all project delivery stakeholders to succeed.
• Signing up to the agreed project objectives and the balance of risks/benefits represented by the individual party’s contract framework will allow it to achieve its own business case and commercial returns.

Individual Stakeholder Cultural Influences

Many organisations that have been in existence for many years have been steeped in traditional contracts and their attendant adversarial practices and behaviours. It is difficult for such organisations to change quickly toward collaborative approaches – the organisational willingness and ability to place trust in partner organisations cannot be simply ‘switched on’. Even if business leaders communicate their support for positive change and collaboration, pockets of resistance will likely remain for a considerable period of time.

The Disposition/Attitude of Project Team Members

As with organisations, many people who have worked in industry throughout the history of traditional conflict and adversity in project contracts may not feel that they can immediately shift toward an approach which is reliant on inter-organisational and interpersonal relationships founded on trust. Their past experiences may include instances where trust has been broken. They may also lack the interpersonal and intrapersonal (emotional intelligence) skills to form the necessary relationships for a successful collaboration.

The Emergence of Self-Interest

Given the above context, the following discusses when self-interested behaviours (potentially undermining and destroying collaborative relationship trust) might emerge. Irrespective of their organisation’s position relative to the project collaboration, some individual team members may not fully commit to the collaborative ethos. Their willingness to fully commit to relationship trust is withheld until a challenging circumstance or issue is met in the progress of the project. They then revert to traditional (US/ Them…..Win / Lose) behaviours in the belief that this is the best way of protecting themselves and their organisations from the impact of the issue.

The shift toward self-interest is commonly an emotionally based response to project circumstances. Individuals may feel personally threatened (in terms of their own ambitions and interests) or they may feel that their organisation’s position is being put at risk at certain times during the course of the project. It may be difficult for them to identify that sticking with collaboration and perhaps approaching project partners for assistance and support at such times is the best way forward.

In the Oil & Gas sector, past practice on major projects has been for client/operators (historically the prime Project Lead Entities) to assemble large owner teams with the intention of man-marking the efforts of contractors and delivery partners. This is in itself symptomatic of their lack of trust. Many owner team positions were filled by IR35 individual contractors with no guidance provided as to the how they should behave in the fulfilment of their roles. It is hardly surprising then that such individuals, being left unguided, would then become the worst exponents of a ‘Master/Slave’ culture and self-interested behaviour – believing this to be expected of them as a client team member.

Guest Blog by Tony Maplesden, Engineering and Construction Project Management, ECITB Project Collaboration Toolkit, Author and Coordinator

Join us

The Collaborative Contracting Community of Practice, supported by Kingsfield Academy and the ECITB, will be hosting a free webinar Implementing Project Collaboration for Net Zero on 28 September 2022, examining what is needed to implement projects based on collaborative working and contracting models.